Tag: casual games

CookingGames.com sold for six-figures as reported by Ron Jackson’s DNJournal and the news has sparked a lively discussion on the internet, especially among domainers.  The Seller cashed in BIG TIME and as Larry Fischer over at DirectNavigation.com has pointed out, the extremely high sales price shouldn’t be such a shock. 

The new owners over at Hallpassmedia own the casual games industry by acquiring and developing premium GAMES domains.  

Shortly after Larry’s post went online, Bill Karamouzio the CEO of HallpassMedia commented several times on the blog offering great insights into domaining and the GAMES niche.

Domaining is not very well known outside of its circle, it would seem online gaming is even less known within the domaining circles even though gaming and online gaming are a huge part of the internet. Google trends and many other sources all show the growing trends in casual gaming…

You can read the full discussion thread over at DirectNavigation.com for lots of great information.

More About Hallpassmedia

Bill runs Hallpassmedia which dominates the casual games industry online with category-killers like WordGames.com, CoolGames.com, and the list is long. According to the site’s About Page:

HallpassMedia is designed to be a one stop network for all your online entertainment needs. We continue to build out our portfolio of premium domain names with targeted content, regular updates and a user experience that is unmatched by other websites. Our goal is the become the largest independent entertainment network online!

The Hallpassmedia web site has tons of useful information – ranging from industry news about the GAMES space online to lots of background information on the company as well as their domain names, domain development projects and much much more.

HallPassMedia’s Developed Sites

GuyGames.com
StickGames.com
WOrdGames.com
GirlGames.com
TacticsArena.com

Hallpassmedia has the formula for continued success with their properites. Thanks to Bill for commenting, we’ve made a correction. If you’d like to know more about AddictingGames.com – here’s the scoop straight from the Hallpassmedia site:

In 2004, using private capital, FPS Networks purchased the domain AddictingGames. Within 3 months of redevelopment FPS Networks had increased traffic by over 600%, catapulting AddictingGames into one of the top 5 casual gaming sites worldwide. Attracting the attention of many VC firms and entertainment networks FPS Networks decided to sell the site to Atom Entertainment (now part of MTV Networks) in 2005. AddictingGames continues to be one of the worlds largest casual game websites and FPS Networks has worked with the MTV team for a smooth transition and continuous growth.

Some of HallPassMedia’s Properties Under Development

newgames.com
coolgames.com
juegosgratis.com
dressup.com
animation.com
bakinggames.com
cartoondoll.com
dolldressup.com
draw.com
fightgames.com
makeupgames.com
playgirlgames.com
playkidsgames.com
quizgames.com
sillygames.com
virtualpets.com

Bill Karamouzis, the CEO of Hallpass Media has created quite a buzz recently in the Domain Community over his purchase of the domain name CookingGames.com for $350,000. Bill even wrote a guest post on DirectNavigation.com that shared the story of another one of his web properties StickGames.com – a domain name that was previously owned by one of the “hardest, most stubborn, and least motivated sellers on Earth” – as Bill puts it in his guest blog.

One can only guess who that might be…

Why Pay $100K for the Domain Name StickGames.com?

The answer is easy: there’s literally hundreds of thousands of people who enjoy playing “stick games” online. Originally when Bill approached the owner about acquiring the name, the owner wanted $250,000. How’d the deal go down?

The domain was getting tons of traffic (confirmed between 1000-1500 type in a day) and the owners after our first contact wanted 250k for the domain, no stats and no revenue figures to be provided. I knew the domain was making nothing for them though, by using automated parking technology I could see all the ads were displaying “stick” game type stuff. Like hockey, skating and ads of this nature. I knew the disconnect was there and viewers were coming to play games and being shown hockey ads so the click through rates must have been nil. I countered offered with a final offer of 100k after a few weeks of back
and forth they relented….

StickGames.com Today

While the games market, like the dating market, is very competitive, he was still willing to a six-figure amount for the name. Bill writes:

It was alot of hard work and networking with many more factors then I’ve been able to list, but the point is a good business plan, hard work and the right assets in this case strong generic domains have helped us in a very crowded and competitive market. We are on track to recover our investment cost in the next 3 months, during one of the worst recessions of our time. Still deals to be had, still many opportunities to be had. Best of luck everyone one!

The phrase “stick games” gets about 135,000 Exact Local Searches. That’s a lot of interest, and likely a lot of type-in traffic. Since launching the stickgames.com web site — from the low X,XXX visitors to nearly 100,000 visitors per month according the December 2009 metrics on Compete.

And there are a lot of even smaller competitors trying to grab a piece of the Stick Games market; from theStickGames.com, to OnlyStickGames.com and even StickGameAddict.com. TheStickGames.com and OnlyStickGames.com, both receive about 8,000 visitors per month.

Type in the phrase stick games — and stickgames.com owns the top spot, but the list of web sites dedicated to stick games goes on and on and on. From stickflashgames.com to freestickgames.net.

We even did some available domain searches to see if there was anything worth hand-registering, but we didn’t find anything. Names like StickFigureGame.net and FunnyStickGames.com were two names we considered, but passed since we don’t know much about the GAMES market.

If you’ve played a few of the games on the StickGames.com website like “Stick Figure Penalty 2”, they’re pretty fun. In Stick Figure Penalty 2 you actually get to choose how you want to die, ranging from a large nail gun to a chainsaw. The disclaimer states, “not for the faint of heart”.

We can see how these online games, particularly stick games, can be addicting.

By the way, AddictingGames.com was one of Bill’s original properties that was sold to MTV Networks.

In 2004, using private capital, FPS Networks purchased the domain AddictingGames. Within 3 months of redevelopment FPS Networks had increased traffic by over 600%, catapulting AddictingGames into one of the top 5 casual gaming sites worldwide. FPS Networks sold AddicitingGames to Atom Entertainment (now part of MTV Networks) in 2005. AddictingGames continues to be one of the worlds largest casual game websites and FPS Networks worked with the MTV team for a smooth transition and continuous growth.”